Last Mile Delivery

Last mile delivery is the final stretch of the supply chain – the leg from a local distribution center, fulfillment hub, or retail store to the consumer's home or business. It's called "last mile" regardless of actual distance; it could be two miles in a dense city or 30 miles in a rural area. What makes it distinct isn't the distance but the characteristics: individual deliveries to residential addresses, tight delivery windows, customer-facing interactions, and a high ratio of stops per route.

The last mile is disproportionately expensive. Industry estimates put it at 40–55% of total shipping cost, driven by low drop density (one package per stop versus pallets per stop in commercial freight), failed delivery attempts, residential access challenges, and the labor intensity of stop-by-stop routing. For DTC brands, the last mile is also where customer experience is made or broken – late deliveries, damaged packages, and missing tracking updates generate support tickets and erode loyalty faster than almost any other operational failure.

Last mile logistics involves a fragmented ecosystem of carriers: national parcel networks (UPS, FedEx, USPS), regional parcel carriers, gig-economy delivery platforms, and specialized providers for bulky or white glove items. Each carrier has different capabilities, pricing structures, coverage areas, and tracking integration quality. Managing this mix – selecting the right carrier for each delivery based on package size, destination, speed requirement, and cost – is a meaningful optimization problem that grows with order volume.

For brands scaling from startup to mid-market, last mile strategy often evolves from relying on a single parcel carrier to managing a multi-carrier portfolio. The key enabler of that transition is having centralized visibility across all carriers and modes – so the logistics team can track every delivery in one place, measure carrier performance consistently, and make data-driven decisions about carrier allocation.